Hacker News Reader

Comment by OutOfHere | Hacker News Reader

As software engineer jobs get culled (citing the excuse of AI), I strongly urge experienced senior software engineers to flip the game, becoming AI-assisted solopreneurs instead. If you're sufficiently intelligent, you don't even need VC money to bootstrap it. Here are some income models:

Service:

1. pay-by-use

2. subscription

Software:

1. open-source with paid new feature development

2. sales (on app stores)

Physical products:

1: Resell from China in West

2. Develop new from China/anywhere and sell globally. Let big sites like Amazon and Walmart do the marketing and fulfillment.

View on HN

Payment or funding models have never been the problem. Those are menus you choose from, not tricky parts you have to come up with from scratch. Thinking of a single product idea I feel has enough chance to succeed to be worth working on, is the entire problem.

After 25 years of never once thinking of one, I doubt that's going to change.

Seriously? Payment and funding are what matter when you are self-bootstrapped, wanting to make an income, and not intending to sell your company (to someone who will likely just destroy it). If instead you want VCs to own you, or intend to not turn a profit, then payment and funding don't matter.

I didn't say they don't matter.

How though is payment not a problem? Everything rides on it.

"How will I charge for this?" is not the reason I've not attempted to launch a product. Having zero ideas for what "this" is, is the reason.

It is one and the same thing. Essentially, "this" is what you will get paid for.

This is crazy how fast you can build things today. But you need to understand what AI is spitting out and make decisions what to include, what to reject and how to ask it to create things. Ironically, this is almost like you would talk to your employees to make things for you.

Yes, you must be able to recognize the right answers and separate them from the hallucinations and crappy engineering. Maybe it’ll get to a point where even people who don’t have a clue can click Apply and never have to worry, but it’s not quite there yet. If it does get there, I’ll find another occupation; it’s not like my job ever defined me as a person.

> this is almost like you would talk to your employees to make things for you

It is, except that the result is almost immediate and almost for free.

So, dropshipping?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com